Tuesday, June 06, 2017

Our Lives as LGBTQI People: "Garments Grown in Love"

Since 2009 I've shared every year during the month of June a series of "Queer Appreciation" posts. Each series is comprised of a number of informed and insightful writings to mark Gay Pride Month . . . or, as I prefer to call it (since 2011), Queer Appreciation Month. I always made a point of including in each series a diverse range of writers and topics, and in general the writings I share are positive, proactive and celebratory.

I begin this year's series with an excerpt from the book Shirt of Flame: The Secret Gay Art of War by Ko Imani. Shirt of Flame explores how LGBTQI people can adopt a leadership role in co-creating a society of equality, freedom, justice, respect, truth, and growth by living our best lives – lives "grown in love" and filled with love, compassion, and community. For as Imani reminds us, "Demanding change without embodying change will never create change."

In the excerpt from Shirt of Flame shared below, Imani challenges us in our response to violence and ignorance. Do we choose to "wield a sword forged of Fear" or embody, like a "garment grown in Love," the wisdom and compassion that have forged our lives as LGBTQI people?

Like heroines and heroes in a fairy tale, LGBT[QI] people are at that point in the quest where all chasms have been crossed, all chimera dispatched, all riddles answered. We have emerged from a cavern onto the mountaintop, where we're faced with the choice between two blazing weapons, a fiery sword or a Shirt of Flame – equally forged of power and pain, but only one of which will win the battle to save kingdom and soul.

We have reached a critical juncture. The decision we make now between fiery sword and shirt of flame will define the existence and pronounce the fate of all LGBT[QI] people, born and unborn, for decades to come. To create positive, genuine, lasting change in culture and policy we just have to take up the correct weapon: the thunderbolt – the Shirt of Flame.

Most things begin violently, but then there is always a choice. We cannot choose whether or not we enter the world underwater, in a mansion or in the projects, just as we cannot control the behaviors of peers, caregivers and strangers who train us in the ways of the world. Like clay that wakes up on the potter's wheel, we cannot help our placement nor so much our shape, but, once we are awake, we can each control what it taken into the vessel of our being and, entirely and most importantly, what comes out.

We LGBT[QI] people and our allies cannot help the preponderance of error an ignorant and fearful society put into the fashioning of our individual vessels on that tilting potter's wheel. For most of us, the defining process of nurturing was like riding one of the broken machines of creation, wheel spinning vengefully, thoughtlessly deforming usand shrinking us from our natural potential. Now, we can't help shrieking on the wheel as we painfully grow beyond the limitations of ingrained mental models about sexuality and gender. Our feelings in response to unloving, untrue and violent rhetoric and behavior – our indignant anger and our hurt – are all natural and appropriate.

At the same time, we are on the mountaintop. We are choosing between those blazing weapons, fiery sword or shirt of flame. At every moment of our battle for integrity and actual equality, we have our choice of response to violence and ignorance. We choose to either wield a sword forged of Fear or wear a garment grown in Love. We choose between conflict and cultivation. If we want to end oppression,
we will all have to make the most helpful choice, individually and collectively. Will we choose destruction or growth? Disease or wholeness? Rot or transformation? Lies or truth? Stupefaction or revelation? A weapon of Fear or one of Love?

In all the amazing expanse of our universe, there are only these two fundamental ways to respond to any situation: with Love or with Fear.
Think back through your day for a moment in those terms – every action you took today began as a source thought of alarm or attraction.
For example, for different people exercising may result from love (i.e. "taking care of my body because I love myself") or from fear of stigma, illness or loneliness. In every moment, you chose, actively or by default, to embody either Fear or Love. The good news is that whichever you chose a moment ago, now you can choose again.

The tendency is to think that you made your choice long ago, with one careless act or a single gentleness. Really, though, the initiation never ends; every moment, each individual is on that mythical mountaintop deciding between Fear and Love. Every moment, each of us has the option to change her or his mind.

In our battle, choosing the weapon of Love is the first step of a new journey that offers not only ultimate victory but the achievement of our personal and communal full, abundant, and joyful existence. Fear's blade offers only an ending, a trembling and a death.

Neither path is easy. They are twin fires. Making the choice between Love and Fear is to be "Consumed by either fire or fire," as poet T.S. Eliot offers in Little Gidding. Choosing the path of inspiration and Love leads through a fire all its own, as Love brings up everything unlike itself. No sooner do we declare what we want to have, be and do than everything we don't want shows up at our door! As Marianne Williamson puts it in Enchanted Love, "Any time there is a chance for deep love, there is standing in front of that love a wall of fire. That fire might take the form of something burning within you – an inner condition – or it might take the form of an outer circumstance. But there is never love without fire . . . the presence of that fire does not say, 'Go away' . . . the presence of that fire says, 'Here, if you are strong enough to take it, is love.'" Choosing Love does not mean we will not be tested and derided, but we can pass through any tempering fire if we only hold to Love. That you undertake this journey at all proves your mythic courage.

. . . As LGBT[QI] individuals and as a queer community, the time has come to make a bold and decisive commitment to the most congruent and effective means to create change that we can muster given our current knowledge. We must choose wisely, for only one option nourishes life. Our enemies have already made their choice – the sword of Fear, falsity and dissolution. We must choose growth, wholeness, transcendence, truth, revelation, cultivation and Love!

However, we must remember that Love is not a hoe, not a hammer. Love is not a pen, saw, mask, nor ship to sail across our conflict laying on a daybed eating grapes. Love is not even a weapon. Love may not be wielded and then yielded when the war is won. This Love is the "thunderbolt within," a power which cannot be displaced nor lulled back to sleep once awakened. To choose the instrument of Love is to don the intolerable shirt of flame: to put on the garment, a second and shimmering skin, the very being, of Love. Each of us must become Love, in chosen, earthy, and real Incarnation, by choosing to respond to every situation with it.

I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, "Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective." As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words "progressive," "gay," and "Catholic" seek to describe.

Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.

On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.

Readers write . . .

"I believe your blog to be of utmost importance for all people regardless of their orientation. . . . Thank you for your blog and the care and dedication that you give in bringing the TRUTH to everyone."– William

"Michael, if there is ever a moment in your day or in your life when you feel low and despondent and wonder whether what you are doing is anything worthwhile, think of this: thanks to your writing on the internet, a young man miles away is now willing to embrace life completely and use his talents and passions unashamedly to celebrate God and his creation. Any success I face in the future and any lives I touch would have been made possible thanks to you and your honesty and wisdom."– AB

"Since I discovered your blog I have felt so much more encouraged and inspired knowing that I'm not the only gay guy in the Catholic Church trying to balance my Faith and my sexuality. Continue being a beacon of hope and a guide to the future within our Church!"– Phillip

"Your posts about Catholic issues are always informative and well researched, and I especially appreciate your photography and the personal posts about your own experience. I'm very glad I found your blog and that I've had the chance to get to know you."– Crystal

"Thank you for taking the time to create this fantastic blog. It is so inspiring!"– George

"I cannot claim to be an expert on Catholic blogs, but from what I've seen, The Wild Reed ranks among the very best."– Kevin

"Reading your blog leaves me with the consolation of knowing that the words Catholic, gay and progressive are not mutually exclusive.."– Patrick

"I grieve for the Roman institution’s betrayal of God’s invitation to change. I fear that somewhere in the midst of this denial is a great sin that rests on the shoulders of those who lead and those who passively follow. But knowing that there are voices, voices of the prophets out there gives me hope. Please keep up the good work."– Peter

"I ran across your blog the other day looking for something else. I stopped to look at it and then bookmarked it because you have written some excellent articles that I want to read. I find your writing to be insightful and interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Keep up the good work. We really, really need sane people with a voice these days."– Jane Gael